Kando

The Widgets are a small, big-nosed people who live in a walled fort in Widget Woods and dig coridite out of the mine beneath it. He-Man knows the name when he hears it ("That's what the Sorceress fashioned this harness from"), and the Widgets keep what little they find hidden because "it's too powerful for us to use." Three of them carry most of the Widget stories, and Kando is the one in charge: Squinch stands guard and Lara keeps house, while Kando, in a red hood, a red tunic and a black belt with a gold buckle, gives the orders.

Lou Scheimer voices him in every episode he is in, under the name Erik Gunden that he used on the show's cast lists.^[1] Kando was planned differently. The bible Filmation wrote for the series made the Widgets the dwarves of the Iron Forest and gave Kando a white beard, and the beard did not survive into the finished cartoon.^[2]

Paul Dini's "Evil-Lyn's Plot," first shown on September 21, 1983, introduces the Widgets with Kando catching his lookout fooling around on the wall. "Put that pig-sticker down before you hurt someone!" he tells Squinch, and then, "You're here to guard the fort, not play games!" Minutes later Skeletor, Beast Man and Mer-Man come over that same wall, and the Widgets are lined up in their own yard as prisoners.

Skeletor's men call him out by name ("Kando, step forward"), and he tells Skeletor plainly, "You have no business here. You go away and leave us alone." Skeletor answers, "I shall, little commander. As soon as you give me your Coridite," and Kando's reply is "Coridite? Never!" Panthor is about to change his mind for him when He-Man arrives and sends the raiders home empty-handed.

Skeletor's second try is subtler, and it gets past Kando. Evil-Lyn arrives as Nadira, a lost girl chased by Panthor, and the Widgets take her in; Kando leads the search for her family and leaves Squinch to look after the guest ("Kando'll find your folks," Squinch promises her). She talks Squinch into showing her the mine and walks off with the coridite. Kando is furious with his guard: "Of all the stupid things to do! Leading a stranger, an enemy, into our mines." When another Widget points out that Squinch did not know, he answers, "That's no excuse," and Squinch agrees with him before setting off for Volcano Cave to get the metal back.

That scolding is the clearest picture the series gives of him. Kando is the Widget who answers for the fort, so he is the one Skeletor's men ask for, the one who says no, and the one who is angriest when the fort's secret walks out of the door. The episode lets him off lightly in the end: the Widgets turn up at Volcano Cave to help He-Man and leave Evil-Lyn tied up.

Clipped from our own copy of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, The Littlest Giant (1984), 1:37 to 3:31, 1 minute 54 seconds. Nothing is added and nothing is sped up. Copyright Mattel.

Paul Dini's "The Mystery of Man-E-Faces," first shown on October 17, 1983, has a monster hammering on the fort door at night. One shot puts Kando in the yard beside Lara, shielding his face while other Widgets peer from their windows; the episode belongs to Man-E-Faces, and the Man-E-Faces entry tells it.

Douglas Booth's "The Littlest Giant" (October 1984) opens with Kando in real danger. A gale lifts him off the fort wall, Squinch holds on to him by a rope, and Lara helps haul him back ("Hang on tight, Kando," then "Squinch! Help!"). When a fallen tree blocks the gate and Squinch insists on moving it alone, Kando goes to the signal cannon and fires the flare that calls He-Man. The rest of the episode is Squinch's, told on the Squinch entry, but Kando goes with him and Lara to the Royal Palace afterwards to tell Man-At-Arms what happened to He-Man and Battle Cat: "That made them fall asleep."^[3]

Harvey Brenner's "Jacob and the Widgets" (October 1984) gives him a job underground. Kando and Biro go down to check on the coridite, and when Biro will not say why, Kando tells him, "You're beginning to sound like Jacob," the grumpy old hermit the Widgets have taken in. Then the water arrives. Kando is the one shouting "Water in the mine!" and then "Mer-Man!", and when Teela turns up and cannot get a straight story out of anyone, she asks him for it: "Kando, you tell me." He answers, "Mer-Man flooded the mine. Biro and I were down there," and only then realizes that Biro is still below.

Kando has no figure: Mattel's vintage line skipped the Widgets, and no Kando has turned up in the Classics, Origins or Masterverse lines either, so there is nothing of him to buy. The nearest thing to him in collectors' hands is Filmation's own artwork: a production cel setup from "The Littlest Giant" showing Orko, Lara and Kando sold at Heritage Auctions on October 22, 2024, and the cel is listed in the animation art archive.

Kando never gets an episode of his own. He is the Widget who keeps the fort running, and the stories come back to him whenever somebody has to explain what went wrong.